Killer View
The weather has cooled down so much over the last week I’ve been able to get out in the yard and tackle the jungle that is my yard.
I have some flowering vines that grew over the fence and onto the other side. When they bloom, my neighbor gets this lovely view of flowers spilling over the fence. We are friendly with them and the only grudge I hold against her is that she has a large window on her second floor that overlooks my patio and backyard. In fact, she has a better view of my pool than I do.
When we moved here, I hired a landscaper to put in plants that would grow up to give us additional privacy. As long as she can see us in the backyard, I feel as if I’m living in a fishbowl. And view she does. She has a desk by that window and keeps the blinds open all the time. She waves every once in a while. Once time she told me she loves looking down into our yard because of all the flowers and pretty plants. Jezuz.
And you know, five years have passed and all the plants are higher than the privacy fence except the ones in that spot in front of her window.
That just kills me.
Fallen into a hospital and can’t get out
Last week Blane’s back went out while he was at the gym. He was in so much pain he couldn’t move and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I would have taken him, but he needed to be moved on a board. Sad, really, because the hospital is right across the street from the gym. No kidding, across the street. I haven’t gotten the bill yet, but I’m guessing he could have gotten a better price on a ticket to France.
His x-rays didn’t look too bad, but the ER doc insisted on admitting him for an overnight stay because he couldn’t move so well. I told the doc I’m a nurse and can do anything they can do (better, too, I promise you) but I gave up the fight and agreed to let them keep him. They wanted to do another test on his back in the morning. Fine.
They did his test while I was gone and the neurologist told Blane his diagnosis while he was so heavily drugged that he couldn’t remember that he even saw a doctor. I had to go read the chart to see what the hell was going on. That’s where I also read they were keeping him another night.
What? I was the one getting him up to the bathroom, getting him bathed, shaving his face… What? Nurses would not answer his call bell while I was gone. I was really afraid he’d fall as he is not used to taking strong drugs.
So I fight them and at the end of the ordeal they tell me he needs to be fitted for a back brace the next day and if he doesn’t get it while in the hospital, the insurance probably wouldn’t pay for it.
Dammit I’m angry and I feel like we’re fucking hostages in this place.
I walk the halls and gaze into the open rooms. This is a non-specialty medical-surgical floor and all of the patients except for Blane are elderly. I know this workload, it’s rough, the patients need loads of help for everything and there are not enough nurses, ever, on those floors because it is a shit job. I wouldn’t dare complain about a thing to one of those nurses because it is not their fault. They are some of the hardest workers in any hospital, med-surg nurses. Couldn’t pay me enough to do it.
So, the patients on that floor, some of them are watching the news, the Town Hall Granny-Gate stuff, ironically. People out there screaming about Death Panels and carrying on as if they really care about it with all their hearts while my own heart breaks into a million little pieces because not a single one of these old people had any visitors in two days.
So. Fitting for a back brace. I was thinking this was going to be something they were going to custom make right there, some gadget that involved plaster and carving, you know, fine craftsmanship.
No, no, no. This thing turned out to be a pre-made velcro powered brace. Another overnight stay for this stupid thing? Wow, no wonder insurance companies refuse to pay so many bills.
And I have to wonder if anyone realizes that no hospital in America could really keep its doors open on Medicare reimbursements alone.
So we go through stupid shit like this, round and round while insurance companies and hospital corps play their games with our tax money and insurance premiums while people like me have to make a choice between whether to leave my drugged up hubby alone for the night or go home to watch my kids.
Is this really the best way to do healthcare? Is this worth fighting for? Really?
And Granny? If people had to dig into their personal bank account to pay for her care, how quickly would those plugs “fall out of the wall?”
I’ve worked extensively with the elderly. I KNOW how much most people care about Granny, so don’t even start trying to bullshit me.
The cancer patient in the video below is alive because she is getting her treatment through Medicare (aka government healthcare). She admits she couldn’t do it without Medicare. My tax dollars. Yours. She is arguing against that same government healthcare for others, however, because she likes being able to choose her doctors (no one wants to take that away from her). She doesn’t care that there are people out there with the same exact diagnosis as she, people who can’t even choose treatment at all because of inability to pay. Working class people who pay Medicare taxes to save her life.
Wow, talk about complaining on a full belly.
I volunteer in a free clinic once a week and have seen people just like her who have cancer but no money for treatment. The clinic mostly treats common things such as diabetes and high blood pressure, so we don’t carry cancer drugs. Since cancer is not an emergency, we can’t dump them at the hospital ER for treatment.
I wish I could tell you more stories about that stuff, but I can’t.
So now Blane has a “pre existing condition” to deal with if he ever wants to just quit work and start his own business. That means we probably wouldn’t be able to buy health insurance at any price to cover his back. I feel like we’ve lost some freedom this week. I know we have. And yet, we are amongst the fortunate who have access to care. This is good fortune when it comes to healthcare in America.
This.
This is all due to people continuing to choose fear over courage. If they really cared about their children, they’d do something about this Mickey Mouse system of ours and give us what they have. Some security in health care. I’m paying for them to have it, why can’t I get that too?
Why can’t we all have that?
Strawberry Cake with Never Fail Icing
It is birthday season. Blane Sr. last week and Blane Jr. this week. I made this strawberry wonder for my son after he asked me to surprise him with a special cake.
I started with three layers of white box cake mix. Between the layers I put a layer of strawberry preserves and some fresh sliced strawberries.
The icing is the magical part. It is a meringue type icing, not something you can buy in a tub or box but something you have to actually crank up the stove to make. It is worth the entire seven minutes of your time. That is one of the popular names for it, Seven Minute Icing. But it takes a little longer than that to make. It is also known as Never Fail Icing, but I’ve had it fail on me before. Those failures have much to do with the humidity. If it is rainy outside, it won’t sugar properly and will be sticky.
So, besides sunshine, here is what you need for the icing:
2 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup of sugar (granulated, not powdered)
3 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon of vanilla
You’ll need to make it in a double boiler. Don’t panic if you don’t have one, I ghetto mine with a bowl and a stock pot. Just make sure the boiling water in the lower pot does not touch the bowl.
Put the egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar and water in a bowl and mix for one minute before putting the bowl or upper pot over the boiling water. (hold off on the vanilla for now)
See below, my aluminum bowl fits perfectly over my stock pot with the boiling water.
While the water in the lower pot boils on med heat, use an electric mixer to whip the mixture until stiff peaks form (yes you are doing this over the stove, don’t burn the cord for your mixer).
Like this in the above photo. This takes about seven minutes. Then you take it off the pot of boiling water and add the vanilla. Whip some more until the sides begin to sugar, about a couple more minutes and not over the stove.
Now you need to work fast and you had better have that cake ready because the icing needs to go on now!
Ice the sides first, then the top.
I added some special toys on top while the icing was still wet. What will happen over the next half hour is the outside of the icing will become crunchy and yummy and…
That cake did not last 12 hours in this house.
While the strawberries on the outside are really pretty, I do not recommend you put them on the icing as they cause the icing to run due to the moisture in the berries. (now I know)
Another variation is the banana cake. Blane’s grandmother gave me this recipe years ago, so it is a family favorite. Bake a yellow cake instead of the white, and for the layers between, make a small box of Jello brand instant pudding (small box and only use 1 1/3 cup of milk in the directions). Spread a layer of pudding then a layer of sliced banana between each layer. Frost with the Never Fail Icing and call yourself The Boss.
999 Pieces of Success
Last week I bought a 1000 piece puzzle and dumped all of the pieces on the table.
I got it for several reasons. First, I think it is good for relieving stress. It feels good to spot a piece and just know where it belongs. Snap it in, and it fits perfectly. Each tiny piece a success. Second, I thought it would get people to congregate at the table and talk more instead of everyone going off into their own little space to watch tv or hang out on the world wide web. Something about faces glowing in front of a screen is extremely depressing to me, and yes, I know my own eyes spend too much time bathed in that light.
It’s a good mind exercise, puzzle building. It trains the eye to be more perceptive and is helpful for spatial relationships. If the original is a painting, you can actually learn something about brush strokes.
It’s also pretty cool for slipping on a song by Tool, “Schism”, where the refrain is, “I know the pieces FIT!” and watch to see how long it takes for the others to notice the lyrics. Then sit back and listen for them to hum the song later because the song is completely lodged into their brains!
Revelations in convos such as this one:
Spanky: I’m going to name my band “Bitch Please.”
Me: Why?
Spanky: Wanna make sure my songs don’t get played on Radio Disney.
Me: Ah, Disney. AM620. I’ll never forget the day y’all got in the car and turned the station from pure FM to AM. I wanted to know who the hell told y’all AM radio existed so I could pinch their head off.
Spanky: You serious?
Me: No baby, I signed up for all that, every minute of parenting torture you kids could throw at me.
Spanky: Torture?! I had no idea.
——–
After a couple of days of puzzling, our eyes began to play tricks on us. While driving into a beautiful sunset yesterday, Spanky said, “Ugh, puzzle sky.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about. Everything picturesque had this puzzle stamp superimposed on it. I want to take down every painting in this house because they all remind me of puzzles. Blane said it too, “Everything looks sectioned off.”
He was the main one at the table. He couldn’t even walk by it without making a stop. “Just five minutes,” he’d say. An hour later, he was still there fighting to get his corner done before I got mine finished out. It’s sort of funny how we got all territorial with our spots, unspoken, of course.
Here is the finished work. The image we’ve been staring at for almost a week.
You ever get that feeling while building a puzzle that one of the pieces is missing only to come back to the thing later and find the piece you were looking for? That kept happening to us the entire time because we knew early on one of them was missing. An edge piece with some writing on it.
It might have fallen off the table and gotten eaten by the dogs, I don’t know, we’ve combed the house on our hands and knees looking for that damn thing. We never found it.
Who the hell cares? We have 999 pieces of success and I like the way my family ganged up to solve something. Even if it was a stupid puzzle we never want to see again as long as we live. I don’t care about that one missing piece, either.
But if it ever shows up, I’m gonna frame it and hang it up on the wall and call it “Solved.”
